As she was guided across the Florence State Prison complex on a hot June day, ASU professor Devoney Looser said she was nervous and didn't know what to expect from her newest pupils: a group of men imprisoned for sexual offenses.

But what Looser said she found was a classroom of men eager to learn about the writings of 18th-century writer Jane Austen.

Looser, a foundation professor of English at ASU and author who specializes in Austen's writing, said that the works can teach readers about social structures, hierarchies, economics and gender relations.

“I think all of those things that make (Austen) successful in the regular classroom have a lot to offer in the prison classroom too," she said.

Looser was invited in June 2018 as a guest speaker for the class, which was offered through the Prison Education Programming at ASU's Department of English.

The program, among other efforts, hosts a variety of courses for ASU students to learn about incarceration and its intersection with literature, and it helps develop and support a network of initiatives connecting ASU students and faculty to education efforts within prisons across Arizona.

Looser said she makes no attempt to downplay the damage done by sex offenders, as she has seen the profound consequences of these types of crimes through working with survivors of campus sexual assault at ASU.

But everyone, she said, deserves an education, regardless of the reprehensible things they have done in the past.

“I think we should be doing much more to bring educational opportunities to prison environments,” Looser said. “Not only for the good of the prisoners, but for the good of the community.”

Joe Lockard, an associate English professor at ASU and the program's founder, invited Looser to teach at the prison and said he believes that there is an ethical imperative to teach prisoners.

Lockard, who has taught a prison literature class at ASU, teaches a poetry workshop every Friday with inmates at the Florence State Prison.

He said he not only sees firsthand how much prisoners value the opportunity to learn, but also the value of the work they produce.

“Prisoners are engaged in the life of the imagination, just like the rest of us,” he said. “They're just as human.”

Wells said that the lack of education among most prisoners is a reason why many of them may enter prison in the first place. Prison education, she said, can help correct that systemic problem.

More than half of former prisoners only have a high school diploma or GED, according to the Prison Policy Initiative, and a quarter have no accreditation at all. This lack of education is part of the reason why formerly incarcerated individuals have a 27 percent unemployment rate, the organization said.

Wells said that addressing the problem requires a paradigm shift.

“We need rehab and education,” she said. “Not more prison and punishment.”